Washington: US President Joe Biden has agreed to provide long-range with advanced rocket systems to Ukraine as part of a $700 million weapons package expected to be unveiled on Wednesday. The package also includes ammunition, counter fire radars, a number of air surveillance radars, additional Javelin anti-tank missiles, as well as anti-armor weapons.

Advanced rocket systems can strike with precision at long-range Russian targets. US is providing Ukraine with high mobility artillery rocket systems that can accurately hit targets as far away as 80 km (50 miles) after Ukraine gave assurances they will not use the missiles to strike inside Russia, senior administration officials said.

According to media reports President Biden said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will end through diplomacy but the United States must provide significant weapons and ammunition to give Ukraine the highest leverage at the negotiating table. That’s why I’ve decided that we will provide the Ukrainians with more advanced rocket systems and munitions that will enable them to more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine, Biden wrote.

Ukrainian officials have been asking allies for longer-range missile systems that can fire a barrage of rockets hundreds of miles away, in the hopes of turning the tide in the three-month-long war. Biden on Tuesday told reporters that we’re not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that strike into Russia. The West has been increasingly willing to give Ukraine longer-range weaponry, including M777 howitzers, as its force battle Russians with more success than intelligence officials had predicted.